Category Archives: Weather

At the beginning of June, JoAnne and I had to make the long, arduous journey across 4000 miles. Ok, well, 1980 miles to Colorado and back again to North Carolina.

We had the annual doctor’s appointments to go do once again, post chemo/cancer checkups for her, and a quick heart check up for me.

We arrived on Monday evening, 11 June at my youngest son’s house. We were exhausted after stopping in Kentucky to hit a family reunion, and then in Missouri to spend the night with some friends before traveling on to Colorado.

The next morning we made it downtown to the hospital to do blood work for JoAnne. We had a bunch of appointments scheduled throughout the week. But, Tuesday night would become “Early Wednesday Morning of the Storm from Hell”.

At about 2:00 AM on Wednesday, the sky opened up. It began to rain. Then small hail fell. When the first large piece of hail hit the roof, I thought we were being bombed. Indeed, we were. By the sky.

Hail the size of softballs began to pelt the neighborhood. I hear my son yell from his room and made my way there, amid the explosive sounds of massive chunks of ice hitting the front and roof of the house. His large windows in his bedroom were gone, rain and hail pouring into the broken panes. We grabbed some tarps to throw over the inside to help prevent too much more damage and I managed to get JoAnne out of the room as our windows shattered.

Going down stairs and outside on the protected front porch I observed total chaos. Car and trucks in the area were being smashed to pieces by the hail. Trees (new neighborhood, so very small ones) were being stripped of leaves and then of their branches. The front yard was covered in hail, some of it the size of tennis balls, all the way up to softball sized hail.

We were up until nearly four in the morning waiting for the storm, rain and wind to subside. I don’t think there were reported tornadoes but the cell certainly was powerful enough to have dropped one. I checked as best I could in the darkness for wall clouds, funnels, and so on without venturing out and getting killed by hail.

I watched as the rear window on our car was hit directly with a large hailstone, which at first I thought exploded. Later when the hail ceased, I went out to check the damage and it had been the window shattering into a million tiny pieces. The glass was scattered from the car to the street and sidewalks. There was glass in the front seats. It had literally exploded.

Since we only had liability on the vehicle, insurance wouldn’t even look at it. I ended up buying a car from my son (which was a spare after he’d purchased a new one) and gave the other to my daughter (who had the time and ability to work on replacing the damaged windows, mirrors and other parts that were badly messed up).

Fortunately, my son’s vehicles were all in the garage. Every, single car that was sitting outside suffered minor to severe damage, some vehicles completely totaled. The fences in back looked like someone had shot holes through it was shot gun slugs. Roofs on neighboring homes had been punctured all the way into the ceilings down below, the hail was hitting so hard!

To my knowledge no one was injured, but I’m pretty certain some cows out around the area probably were killed that night. I’m sure that animals suffered greatly out there.

We needed to borrow my son’s car the next day to get to the rest of the appointments, and I ended up simply buying the car from him to fulfill our schedule over the next two weeks. All-in-all, most things went well.

We did find that JoAnne’s CA-125, the blood work to check for tumors, had more than doubled, which gave us all a scare. A CT scan was ordered and they found no sign of cancer. However, the doctor wants up back in September. There’s more to this story, but I’m not going to fill it in at present. I will mention there are other things that can cause an elevation in the CA-125 numbers, and we believe at the moment that something did just that. We plan to see some local doctors here in NC to have more tests performed to make the final determination about going back to Colorado in September.

I discovered I have a slight leak in my “New to me Heart Valve” that was put in in May 2015. I wonder if they had a 10 year warranty program? Probably not, so perhaps I can find something like “Leak Stop” I can drink…. perhaps more bacon? I dunno.

On a better note, we managed to get back to North Carolina unscathed by any more freak storms, after stopping back in Missouri and spending several wonderful days with our friend Mike and Cindy. We also stopped in Ashville and visited with a couple of friends there, did some beer tastings in some of the breweries and then finally headed home to Southport and our ship, Adventure.

Upon arrive, I checked our batteries, as I’d left them on the smart charger (the new one I put in after the fire) and they were in excellent shape, not over heated, had not lost much water from the cells, and the status was very good. The boat however, needed a decent washing again. Mold appears on the outside often.

I went back to work about the 9th of July at the marina here, and found I’d not forgotten anything I needed to remember…. except to get up for work in the mornings. I wasn’t late, but might have been had I not had JoAnne wake me up to tell me my alarm was going off (for fifteen minutes).

Now, JoAnne has some appointments scheduled here to go in for a new check up locally, and we’re going to be making a decision about Colorado or Bahamas soon.

In the mean time, a few days ago, I managed to drop my phone into a sink, with water running. It was a klutzy move on my part, as I was trying to grab a pair of sunglasses I’d dropped, fumbled those, and smacked the phone sideways and into the sink. I didn’t catch either the glasses OR the phone. DOH!

I immediately grabbed it out, shook the water away from the charging port and earphone jack and we removed the battery as quickly as possible. Still, the phone’s mic and the Home button ceased functioning. I opened it up and dried it (It wasn’t really damp inside anyway) and placed it, you guessed it, into a “bag of rice”, purported to help dry phones due to rice’s ability to absorb moisture. I don’t really think it worked. But the phone DID seem to work better the next day.

Yesterday, we drove to a place in Wilmington to have the phone repaired. They ran it through a drying machine (for three hours) and apparently attempted to “repair” some of it. They got the Home button working, but broke the other two buttons. The microphone is still dead. And they supposedly backed up my data, but deleted all my pictures. All 2000 of them, including the hail damage and my favorite images of JoAnne (Dummy me, I’d forgotten to back it up before I left!)

Grrr… Well, on the way back… the car started acting up. We hit some major puddles on the way back and things got wet. I suspect the electronics in the car (I’m really having issues with electronics and water, huh?) got wet and when we arrived here in Southport, to stop at a store, the car wouldn’t start back up.

It growled funny at us and eventually, after five or six attempts it started up.

However, there was another sound. Coming from the air conditioner unit. We believe the bearings on the device are shot. We’re supposed to drive to Myrtle Beach today for a concert, but apparently, that’s a bad idea. Instead we’re riding with friends and I’ll get parts on order for the car on Monday.

So the last two months have been “One thing or another”, as usual for the “Adventurers”.

One last thing before I go.

We have been discussing a “Watermaker” for the boat. We’ve done the pros and cons, including the costs/return benefits and realize we probably wouldn’t ever save enough money making our own water but still want the ability to be independent of having to buy it in islands or have to purchase a dock for the night to get water. We have been staying here in Southport on a dock and DO have access to water, which is great. And for the last 5 days, we’ve had enough rain to fill our tanks several times, but setting up a catchment without a real need isn’t fun or convenient.

Over the course of our research, we found several places and most of them were $5000 USD and up. There are a lot of folks who are DIYers and build their own stuff. While I have the ability to do so, I usually don’t have the time to sit and measure, design and find all the parts.

In comes a company called Seawater Pro and owner, Michael. He offers a “kit” that consists of all the pieces you need, including a lift pump, the gauges, and hoses, the reverse osmosis filter, prefilters and the pressure pump required to get you started.

The only “con” to this system is, it’s in pieces and runs on AC power (120 volts) because it uses an inexpensive pressure washer system as the pressure pump. That means AC power is required (something most people don’t have unless they 1) have generation, 2) are on a dock, 3) have a heavy inverter – mine is dead now, due to the fire a couple of months back) and it just doesn’t seem “easy” to use.

However, I’ve spoken to Michael on the phone a couple times and on FB with one of the representatives from the company and was convinced that this might be our best, and cheapest option. So I went ahead and discussed this with Michael at https://seawaterpro.com/ and decided to purchase the kit.

That will be the subject of an upcoming blog entry in a few weeks I hope, sooner if I get the car running and my phone back to 100%. So, stay tuned for more on the water maker, because I will feel better being able to rinse out my bathing suit with fresh water, in the Bahamas come November and December this year!

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Life to us, is an Adventure. From deciding to go to islands for a week or two, to climbing around in the Grand Canyon, to exploration of Yellowstone. We’ve traveled back and forth across this great land of ours, and around the world a few times to get to distant locations.

Thus, choosing a life of “cruising aboard a sailboat” wasn’t too difficult of a decision, except that we didn’t really KNOW people did such things until we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do when we “retired”.

Becoming “retired” became an adventure, just getting there. Getting enough money put away for a few years of cruising (which has rapidly been eaten up by everything from boat issues to medical issues, and just getting health insurance – which took well over a quarter of what we had put away initially) was an adventure.

Since we started this part of our lives, we’ve been back and forth across the US from Colorado to the East Coast, Northern States, almost ALL the Southern States and all up and down the East Coast to as far north as MD and DE. Haven’t made it to Maine (again for me) yet, but it’s on the list.

Today we completed one of the logistic nightmares that every cruiser goes through from time to time. Provisioning for a long distance journey, to help us be free of having to do a lot of grocery shopping. JoAnne and I argued a bit about “how much”. We decided finally upon a “three month supply” of dry goods and canned foods to give us the chance to travel and not worry so much about finding anchorages where we could find stores. She’s planning to bake bread, make soups, and I’m planning to catch fish.

One of the things I need to do is finish putting things BACK together in the forward compartment. We had it all set up and arranged, but we had to move stuff around again, and I have tools out again, etc. So, once that is done tomorrow we can depart any time. I want to make sure we’re watered, oil and fluid levels checked and motor out of the marina, raise the sails and head out to the Atlantic.

I had to deal with insurance issues the last few days as well; trying to get information is sometimes difficult. Our insurance expires in December, and I wanted to make sure it’s going to get renewed on time and had to send multiple emails to get anyone to finally respond with the answers I sought. I am not sure why I have “boat insurance” on this old boat, but, it is our home and that’s the only reason I can think of offhand. A lot of people believe you should have it, as many believe it’s ridiculous. I’m in the “ridiculous” camp.

Medical is the same way. Expensive, unhelpful, and it sucks your bank accounts dry. But, we have it because she wants it (she had cancer, so far, she doesn’t and it hasn’t reoccurred).

But – the real “Adventure” starts in a day or so when we can pull out of the marina again, with a clean bottom oil changes, new charts in the plotter, and my paper charts and plotting equipment with me in the cockpit. Yeah, I use paper. Yeah, I use the plotter to give me a good idea of where I was, and where I am going, but not so much to guide me through life, or the sea.

I do have my sextant, and will get a few chances to practice again. It’s been a long while since I pulled it out and I’m going to have to refresh my memory on how to take a noon sight again.

And the best part is… I am NOT going to starve.

JoAnne has plenty of food aboard. Including my precious peanut butter. Who needs bread when you have a spoon?

Weather is supposed to be nice the next few days, albeit, chilly in the evenings. Winds are light and variable the next few days. I’m looking for 12-15 knots to use to get me south.

And we’re sailing. I’ll power the engine up to get us out of here and maybe through the Cape Fear river inlet, but the sails are going up as soon as possible and the engine is going off for as long as I can keep it off. We’ll take turns on shifts and we’ll try to get a few good hours of sleep each day, on opposite shifts.

This will be our first multiday passage, so we’re going to go for 24 hours testing ourselves and if that works out, another 24, then another, until we arrive at a nice destination.

For our friends who’ve given up on us going back out, I will say…y’all ain’t seen nothing yet.

I would urge folks to go read it. Agree or disagree with my opinion, it’s important to me that people learn from history, they learn from mistakes, and they learn skills before they need them.

I wrote a book called “Basic Survival and Communication in the Aftermath”. The “Aftermath” is that thing that exists when it’s all over. Disaster, zombie apocolypse, hurricane, asteroid strike. You name it. Any sort of thing that befalls some portion or all of the human race, putting them into survival mode.

Maybe people pooh pooh such things as science fiction. The truth is that disasters DO happen. We know for instance dinosaurs once walked this planet. Giants who ate one another, and whole trees in one sitting existed. We have found their bones. We have found their skulls. We know they were….

We also believe they were eventually killed off in a rapid extinction, perhaps by as asteroid hitting the planet. That is, of course, the belief of science today, and while not 100% certain, it definitely has a good following, even from me.

The point though, is that these mega critters had all they could eat, and lived the “good life” as critters go. And suddenly over a few decades, simply ceased to exist. Human beings aren’t very large. We’re not very powerful. We’re not all that tough as creatures go. We do have civilization, technology, good (and bad) eating habits. We live in a world of other humans. We mostly get along. We mostly don’t kill each other for lunch (though there are a few times it’s happened).

But we, like the dinosaurs, populate this planet in abundance and dependence on the planet’s resources. The two recent hurricanes prove that we’re stronger than we look and resilient, yet, dangerously dumb at times.

Many of my prepper friends ask me about my book, mentioned above. They ask why it’s not in a paper format, because, you know Rick, when the EMP comes Kindles and digital media will be no more!

Here is why. It kills trees to make a book. Books wind up in garbage cans or burned as a fire starter when the end comes. It isn’t the BOOK that is important, it’s the KNOWLEDGE inside said book.

Reading and knowing information is all we as a race have. Understanding things. Knowing HOW to do things in both a technological manner and a primitive manner are what keep us alive.

That you can take a computer, get the weather from it and know where the hurricane is, where it’s headed (with in a reasonable guess anyway) and know which way to go to get out of the way is one thing. Gazing at the sky and seeing after noon clouds building and knowing a thunderstorm is in the making is more important in the hear and now, than the hurricane five days out though.

Knowing how to pick up a few things in the woods, and start a fire that night to keep you warm, in the shelter you made with your own hands – it’s THOSE things you should know. Sure, you might have a cell phone to call for rescue. Sure, you MIGHT be able to get a chopper to come pick you up from the mountain with one. If they battery isn’t dead, if you’re in cell service range, if the phone isn’t wet, and and and…. etc.

The fact is, sometimes, one must stop, drop and roll to put out a fire on their body, or duck and cover from a nuke attack. Sure, those things are few and far between, but it could happen.

So can hurricanes. Category V hurricanes. And denuded Islands happen. And flooded land in Texas could happen. Earthquakes in California could happen. Typhoons in the Pacific can happen. And knowledge is forever in your head when your book blows away in the rain.

Final thoughts here, do yourselves a favor. Do not be normal. Don’t follow the masses. Don’t believe everything you see on TV, hear on the radio or read on the Internet. Believe instead, in yourselves. Believe you can be better than you are, that you can do things no one else can do. Because, friends, you can.

Over the past three or four days we have had some large, wicked storm cells move through the area. I had just emptied the dinghy of rain water yesterday morning and helped our friend Jay of Knot Working off the dock for his trip south. (Jay ended up coming back a few hours later due to some rigging issues, a lazy jack that got lazy and a stack pack that, well… wouldn’t stack.)

Mean time, the water was pumped out using a small bilge pump I keep around, attached to a solar panel. Doesn’t a quick job for me, at 800 gallons per hour, it will empty the dinghy quickly.

The rain hit hard yesterday between 4 and 5 pm and it was… to say the least a HEAVY downpour.

Fortunately, I’ve repaired a lot of the little leaks and have now placed new paint on the deck and topsides of the cabin. It needed it badly. There was no wax left, and if you touched the surface the white would rub off onto your hands. I think the pain helped to bead the water up and roll it off the sides now.

So this morning I wake up to this little image:

Not nice, but perhaps not bad, yet.

Harvey, the red X on the lower left is already a “remnant” of a hurricane. Disturbance 2 (Invest 92) is on the center and aiming at Bahamas. Disturbance 3 is headed towards Bermuda.

Harvey has a chance to restrengthen in the new few hours and regain it’s notoriety as a tropical cyclone once again.

The other two each have a roughly 10% chance of cyclone formation in the next 24 hours.

I watch “Mike’s Weather Page” and NOAA, as well as the various “spaghetti models” tending to rely more heavily on the EURO model. I also look at the US weather patterns and the fronts and highs/lows coming across along with their timing with the arrival of a storm system. It’s not an exact science for me – since my training is mesoscale and not things like hurricanes, but I’m learning.

Below is an image of the various models and how they are coming together:

And this is a satellite image of the same region over the past few hours. Obviously, it isn’t quite to the point of rotation, and if it makes landfall before that starts, it will weaken significantly and dump a lot of rain, some straight line winds and make a mess of things in the Bahamas.

So for my friends currently in the Bahamas, keep your eyes and ears open.

I started the water pump and found the water was flowing from the front of the boat. It had to be coming from hoses going to the front head.

Our front head is… a closet. While it functions perfectly, it has a brand new Jabsco pump toilet and everything except MOST of the electricity works up there, the important stuff like water, toilet and bilge pump wiring functions.

This means I have removed a LOT of bulky items from the “closet”. Coats, my wet suit, canes (JoAnne and both have used them for walking in the past, and I keep them around “just in case”, lol. Three times breaking my right ankle taught me the hard way), there is a big bag of “dirt” used for the composting toilet sitting in there, some tools, and stacks of TP in the bags as well as paper towels, tarp and we store the unused heaters in there as well.

After I removed everything I crawled into the bathroom upside down and looked into the “undersink” area and immediately found the problem.

This is a Chinese built production vessel. The Chinese are pretty good at building things, stealing designs and making knock offs, and pretty good at plumbing. This boat is built with copper pipes, fore to aft plumbing the sinks and fresh water. Fortunately, it doesn’t get exposed to sea water. The water tanks are plumbed with plastic hoses, plastic connectors and various adapters connecting everything together. Some of it is haphazardly thrown together appearing as afterthoughts”.

The copper pipes going to the sink are held in place by a pressure fitting, with a rubber washer that presses the pipe into place as you tighten the nut. The apparent constant pounding on the front of the boat in the waves yesterday forced the pipe from it’s connection, which in turn released the pressure at the front of the boat, telling the pump to engage and it complied by forcing all the fresh water in the main tank out, into the under-sink area, down into the bilge, and the bilge pump simply did it’s job keeping sloshing water out of the bilge and outside the boat where it actually belongs.

The repair was simple. Remove the washer and nut and the metal washer, inspect everything, clean the connection and put it all back together, retorque the nut into place with the washer (I’d have put in a new one, but this was was not worn and appears to have been recently replaced since just before we bought the boat). The other side, I re-tightened. Turned on the pump and viola! Water pressure again. I really need to look at a foot pump though. haha Took about two hours of work removing things and repairs, and another week putting it all back together (all that stuff has to go somewhere!)

So, other than losing 60 gallons of fresh water through a failed plumbing connection and about 8 pounds of water from our bodies through other means best left undescribed, I’ll say we’re “none the worse for wear”. JoAnne is a bit dehydrated today which isn’t good for her. I’m “over” that for now, but am still constantly hungry dispite a half price burger and full priced pint of beer yesterday evening…. I’ll get some more food in me and look at the wiring up front.

We’re going to stay here at least once more week. Need to wait on our new credit card, I want to do some digging through things we have and see if we can’t eliminate a few things. Lighten the load so to speak.

We haven’t made a decision to stick with it, but we have been receiving a lot of encouragement from friends who’ve been through (and are actually going through now) similar issues.

I have learned that we’re both more “fair weather sailors” than we are old salts or hardcore-round-the-Horn people. I have ALWAYS known that the ocean demands respect, and I do. But, when it comes to rotten weather predictions by using the collected data I feel like I should have known better than to go out yesterday. JoAnne did. And I went back to bed for two hours, dozed off and awakened thinking I was going to “call it a day” before we went out.

But, I didn’t do that. I’ve ALWAYS trusted by instincts and the few times I didn’t turned out badly for me.

That kind of mistake, taken in small doses is usually just dumb. Downright dangerous though, when combined with the Sea, Weather and second guessing oneself.

Unlike the giant ships that disappear at sea, we came home.

No matter what we do from here on out, I’ll not venture down a coast in the wrong conditions again.

Hi everyone. Thought I’d try to get in one more blog post before the end of the year.

It’s been a long, challenging year for us. In fact, two challenging years. (I already posted a message for Christmas on Facebook, and will probably restate a few things here so if you think you’ve read it before, you might have).

In 2009 we decided to learn to sail, and eventually to become cruisers. JoAnne and I have read literally a couple of hundred books over the course of time since that day we made the decision. While all of them were helpful, some were stories, fiction, true adventure, and books about storms. All of them helped prepare us for everything we have encountered and a few things we’ve yet to (and don’t want to) encounter.

Last Christmas we were sitting in Colorado with our kids and Grandkids after JoAnne’s back injury. We thought more than once we wouldn’t get back to the boat and would have to sell her. But, things didn’t turn out like that.

We’ve traveled back and forth across the country about five times since July 2015, for medical appointments, visiting and due to injuries.

This season we moved the boat to Cole’s Point Marina, where we worked on the boat. We added solar panels, repaired the refrigeration, I had already added a new stove, refurbished the sails, repaired many little things, added a composting toilet, removed a broken electric toilet and replaced it with a Jabsco pump toilet. I’ve added strip LED lighting to the main cabin area (and will add some to the forward cabin in time, along with some new wiring I’ll pull in when I have an opportunity). We’ve eliminated a few things (not enough). We’ve picked up an inline water filter to remove the bad tastes and to take water aboard. I’ve made a water catchment device to collect rainwater, picked up a propane heater for the cabin, as well as an electric heater. We’ve worked out how to make the wood stove work properly. I’ve rewired the nav station, radio gear (neatened it all up and added a special power strip for DC radio gear. Eventually all the radio gear will be tied there). Oh, and I varnished about 80% of the woodwork aboard Adventure. I have been testing some varnish.

A few weeks ago we ran into some more alternator problems (which I documented) and had that repaired and discovered a LOT of other issues on the engine which we also had taken care of. During the work, I had the mechanic teach me a few things since I was paying and arm and a leg (I know why pirates have hooks and peg legs now…).

We paid up our bill here through 6th January and decided to stick out Christmas here. One of the folks sailing down from Canada we’re friends with (Rosemary and Joe, aboard “Winds of Change” were coming down and so JoAnne invited them to dinner. Turned out other boats were traveling with them. We thought two, then it was actually four boats total.

So the dinner turned into a pot luck. Then more cruisers and liveaboards near by joined into the dinner. All told, on Christmas Eve we had about 15-18 people (I never counted them up), and one boat’s couple left to visit relatives so they missed the dinner. Others joined in and everyone brought food, drink and stories.

Over all, a grand success. JoAnne was worried about putting something like that together. I’m not sure why. She has always fed an army (usually doing ALL the cooking herself, raising five children, usually having boarders in the house, and random neighbor children who ALWAYS were there for dinner almost every night). So, whatever trepidation she had vanished as she turned on her “Chef Skills” and made a giant pot of stew which likely would have fed everyone in the marina that day with a side of rice. Fortunately, there was plenty more food than we could ALL eat. Everyone brought something, from sloppy joes to stew, to small “sub sandwiches” to enchiladas and bottles of wine and rum. I was shocked at the amount and quantities. I tried a little bit of everything and had two full bowls of stew.

“Winds of Change” happens to have been the name of our first boat, our Macgregor Venture. So when we saw the name on the group, we had friended them on Facebook immediately. After all, we share a connection. The boat name, and now the Leaky Teaky boats, ours the Transworld 41 and them the Formosa 41. It was wonderful to get to meet them in person finally!

I have to say that I still like our center cockpit a bit better, though I think sailing from the aft of a sailboat this big might have a few advantages over the CC. I can’t tell you though, what those might be.

All in all, this year traveling from the Potomac in late October to here has been relatively uneventful compared to last year. Although, we have gone aground a few times, we’ve bumped some pilings, and I have some small damage on the port side where I caught a pole in the water, the engine conking out…. we haven’t really had major issues.

Yes, it was stressful coming down the ICW. I was at ease going outside and motorsailing at night, but I always worry about all the things that can “go wrong” out there. I worry for JoAnne’s safety much more than mine (because, quite honestly, I’d done some really dangerous things in my life and while the majority of them I wouldn’t want to repeat, I understood what I was doing, and knew I could die). Sailing in the ocean is one of those things.

You understand it. You know you can die. But you also, always, concentrate on the moment in time, staying alive, staying safe, staying on course, going there you’re going and knowing you have options to handle almost anything. Even, right down to closing down the hatches and doors after taking down sails and putting out a sea anchor, then hoping the boat will ride out whatever you hit. In almost all cases, a boat will do fine. It’s generally the crew who can’t handle it.

We have one issue on our boat. JoAnne isn’t really able to run the boat alone. I’m worried she will injure her back again and she has been prone to falling in the past so I won’t put her in danger. That means I tend to do everything on deck, though I have been letting her toss lines out, and put out fenders to get used to doing it again. So running a “shift” isn’t too easy, unless I set things up and let her stand watch, let the autopilot take care of things until the wind changes or we have to tack. Then she can wake me if I’m sleeping and I can do the work.

This basically means for us, sailing straight to Florida isn’t going to be easy. From here at five knots it would take us about 65 hours (give or take where we pull in). And just two of us doing it. Then we have to count on the engine from time to time to charge batteries if the sun isn’t out (solar, remember?)

Therefore we’ve come up with muliple plans to get south now. From here we are planning to sail straight down to Jacksonville area. And as we go we’ll make changes to our thinking based on the conditions we encounter and how tired we get. We’re going to try it in pieces as well. So, we’ve picked a half dozen distant spots to pull into if need be to anchor and rest. We’ve also planned part of the route inside as well.

We have many options from here, but the main goal, to “get south and to warm” is the priority. That and using the engine the least amount necessary, anchoring when we need to, and staying warm.

So as the year closes on us, we are shooting to be in Florida not later than about 3 weeks from now, whether we can move more quickly, or slowly will depend on a lot of factors including the weather and my ability to take us long distances on the boat.

To this day, I am not ready to lie down and sleep with the boat moving. So, I’m probably going to have to learn that skill next 🙂

I want to wish everyone a “belated Merry Christmas” as I’m posting this the day after.

And I want to give everyone something to consider for the New Year.

Many people make “resolutions” to accomplish or do something important in the New Year.

I made a resolution never to make resolutions a long time ago, so I don’t do that. But I do make plans, I do set goals, even if they are in my head and not written down.

For the cruisers, the dreamers and the wanna-be cruisers who’ve not quite gotten here yet, I’m going to give you a secret.

The secret to success is “perseverance”.

That is the secret ingredient to “success”.

If you have a dream to move aboard a boat and go cruising, you will have to work at it. You will have to plan. You will have to make decisions, some easy, some difficult. You will have to write your notes down. You have to learn to sail if you don’t know how. You have to work your ass off. You have to practice. You have to learn new skills. You have to travel a bit, you have to stay home a lot, you have to spend some money, and you have to save money.

With out laying out a map for you, I’ll tell you this:

Make a plan (Do you want to cruise full time, or part time? Do you want to just travel the Chesapeake?)

Get your skill set together as you go, every day work on it (Can you sail? Learn! Wood work? Plumbing?)

Pay your bills. ALL Of them. Eliminate them. If you use a credit card, PAY it off EVERY MONTH.

Have your goals written down and check them off as you go. Once you get one, check it off. (Then go back and pat yourself on the back!)

PERSEVERE! Do NOT give up. Do it.

Adversity has a way of weighing people down, depressing them, making them believe they can never get up again and sometimes adversity will literally break your back, bones, make you sick and leave you in pain.

Pain is the one thing that tells us we’re still alive and we should be doing something else. Find a different route.

If you want to sail, do it. Start small if you have too (I didn’t, I am glad I didn’t. I started on a 30′ boat and went SMALLER to a 25′ boat for practice, and the 25;’ boat was like a part of my arm when I stepped aboard). Getting on to a bigger boat like this ketch at first will be daunting and probably stop one from sailing without a very good instructor.

I’ve been teaching myself how to sail this boat. She handles differently that a fin keel, from a sloop and from a dinghy. She handles much differently that my little Venture did. She has a mind of her own and I’ve had to learn to tame her, and make he go where I want her to go. It’s difficult to do with no books on the subject and only the meager knowledge I gained from an instructor and sailing my own sloop.

The point, though, is don’t give up. Continue. Persevere.

That, folks, is the secret to success. You just take that and apply it to your set of circumstances. YOU are the one to make it happen.

All our best for a Happy New Year – and I mean the whole of 2017.

We’ll see you in the Warm.

Rick and JoAnne

(PS I will add images into this a bit later, so check back when you have time)

Against the odds, against the forecasts, and against the models a massive hurricane has formed in the Caribbean Sea.

This morning when I checked it had been upgraded to a Category 5. It is sitting in the southern Caribbean Sea, south of Jamaica and appears to have taken a slight left turn, and will probably, quite suddenly swing northward on a collision course with Jamaica, the across Cuba, and onward into the Bahamas.

The conditions were really NOT all that conducive for forming such a massive hurricane which is why I said “against predictions” above. But, predictions, humans and computers programmed by humans are fallible.

Right now, the various models show the path taking a plunge to the north, through MOST of the Bahamas and on up the coast. Since yesterday evening, that has changed slightly and models are showing it moving north and then pushing eastward.

I’ve been watching some fronts moving across the states which might prove to save the day. If the timing is right, and I say IF, the two fronts should converge around Tuesday and push the hurricane east ward. Unfortunately, there is also a pretty big High sitting off the coast and that might cause some problems.

I’m not a meteorologist but I’ve studied it enough over the past 40 years to have a bit of knowledge on the subject. JoAnne and I storm chased and spotted for the NWS in Colorado for about 20 years. So we have a bit of background in mesoscale events. This is not meso. This is massive. Synoptic observations and data are easy to get these days, but I’m again, no expert in reading it all.

My “take” on this hurricane is that it WILL blow out over the Atlantic after reaching the Bahamas. It will weaken after hitting Jamaica because going over land reduces it’s power. It will build a bit, but hit Cuba further weakening it. By the time it hits Bahamas I think it Cat 3 or even a Cat 2 is all it will be. With LUCK and timing, the fronts should be above it and pushing outward to the East.

The Earth’s rotation as it travels north will also cause it to spin out away from the US. And prevailing westerlies.

At this point, I HOPE I am right. And I hope that the folks in Bahamas, Cuba and Jamaica all fare better than a category 5 will give them….

In other news, we’ve had rain, rain, rain for the past week. Either in Richmond where we visited a couple of days for my eye check up, and all the way here to the boat. Lots of rain. We had super high water a couple of days ago, washing over C Dock and some of the others. We’re on a floating dock, so the only issue we had was a dinghy full of water because SOMEONE forgot to pull the plug when he hoisted it onto the davits. Fortunately a kind neighbor noted something amiss and went over in his dinghy and pulled the plug for me. Normally, I remember to pull it, but for some reason I just spaced it. THAT is the kind of thing that sinks boats. Not remembering the little things. Live and learn.

Windows still leak somewhat, here and there. I think I have discovered one of the major leaks though. I believe at this point water from rain is coming in through the traveler area in front of the cockpit. I can’t pull out the stuff due to the building of the boat. I think I can seal it though. As to the windows, I don’t have the right gasket material and not too sure where to get it. So, I thought I’d do an experiment. I cleaned out the old, dried up gasket from one of the portlights and used RTV in the place where a gasket should be. I let it cure and sure enough, it works. Not the best thing, not permanent, but it DOES work in a pinch. So…. I’ll keep a few tubes of that stuff around for emergencies.

Front area cleaned up, and I can walk in there, I can access the anchor locker if needed, I can move stuff out of the forward head easily now and we can use that bathroom if necessary too. Hung our walking sticks, and some other long items up front from bungie cords. Tools accessible now. Front name plates are varnished, the red paint is on them, and at some point I can paint in the name of the boat on the forward plates…. maybe it will quit raining for a few days this century….

Plans now include a trip to a military commissary for paper products (TP, paper towels, plastic trash bags to store things) and of course “boat alcohol”. LOL. Cheaper, no taxes, but it’s a long drive. While we still have our car.

Our friend Kurt has promised to store our car for this winter/spring coming up until we come back this way. So we have that going for us.

I have a radio modification to perform on one of my rigs before we bug out. And I’d like to install the vhf/uhf rig some where in the boat where I can get power to it easily and get an antenna up on top somewhere. Might put that off awhile.

Eyes were pronounced “awesome” by the Doctor. I am 20:25 unaided by glasses, but do require reading glasses for up close. Can’t focus that close now. I can free dive soon if I want, or use a mask. So I’m good again, and I can SEE. Wow. Just wow.

Basically, all the BIG jobs are done. Just the little stuff. And waiting out hurricanes. I recall at this time last year, we were sitting in Galesville, Maryland awaiting Hurricane Joaquine which was making a bee line up the coast…. and was very similar to this one, except it started further north, went west, and then turned suddenly out to sea and never threatened the coast at all. Almost exactly a year ago today….interesting isn’t it?